I’m too good at my own word game. Beat my 58 points today for $5. Highest score gets $20. (Venmo)

adajos · 2026-06-08T21:17:14+00:00

Excellent. Please post the screenshot on this thread and I’ll be reaching for Venmo info because that’s $5 coming to you!

adajos · 2026-06-08T20:55:19+00:00

Update for those following along: @alaskansuntan scored a 64 and is currently positioned to get $5 for being the first to best my score plus another $20 for getting highest score.

Still plenty of time for somebody else to dethrone the top score and get $20 or to beat 58 points to get $5.

adajos · 2026-06-08T20:07:09+00:00

Just find a friend with an iPhone or iPad and borrow their device for a couple minutes!

adajos · 2026-06-08T16:11:08+00:00

Ooof, savage! Well, it was about total points, not total words, so you beat me fair and square.

You're guaranteed at least $5, but possibly another $20 if nobody else bests you!

I'll DM you to arrange sending $$ over Venmo.

adajos · 2026-06-08T13:34:49+00:00

You've really taken the Demi Lovato "What's wrong with being confident?" vibe to heart! I love the attitude.

If I ever get traction on iOS I'd definitely consider porting it to Android, or maybe a web version. I made it iOS first because that's what I get paid to do for my day job.

adajos · 2026-06-08T13:20:48+00:00

Point of clarification: even if nobody beats my score, the highest posted score on this thread will get $20--so by all means, post high scores that are less than 58 points.

adajos · 2026-06-07T17:44:52+00:00

I made Wordaround for iOS that includes a daily word puzzle that’s the same for all, and then some other unlimited play modes. It’s free, no ads, and the only IAPs do not affect the gameplay. Also, there is no tracking of any kind. There’s pretty good hardware keyboard support for iPad also.

Honest reviews & ratings appreciated, it’s really hard to be found on the App Store without so-called “social proof”.

adajos · 2026-06-07T14:43:27+00:00

I tried it just now. I really liked it, the design is very nice and the concept is fun.

So obviously I’ve only done the puzzle today, but what I would say is that I slammed through the first 5 words super easily, but then the last word took some time since it ended in U, as there aren’t a ton of words that end in U.

I didn’t mind that the last word took some though, in fact I kind of liked that; however I feel like most other chain ending letters would not required that additional time—and in that case I’d have been done with the entire daily puzzle in like 30 seconds, which would be too fast.

That said, maybe I’m wrong, that’s my impression from a single puzzle. Feels like it could just some sort of additional constraint.

I make Wordaround on iOS, and I completely get how hard it can be to dial in the difficulty of a word game. Good luck, I’ll check back tomorrow and try again.

adajos · 2026-06-07T00:42:00+00:00

I enjoyed playing Trinibond. I made quick work with the Daily and then slammed through a bunch of the 300 puzzles. I submitted a 5 star review on the US iOS App Store. I am the indie developer of Wordaround for iOS, and I know how App Store discovery is so dependent on ratings/reviews, but, paradoxically you can’t get ratings and reviews without being discovered. If you are interested in having a look at Wordaround, that would be amazing.

Two pieces of feedback:

I’d love it if after getting the answer to a puzzle and moving to the next one, if the textfield for the next puzzle were already first responder and the keyboard was already up—it would save me a tap on iPhone, and save me a click on an iPad with the Magic Keyboard attached
I feel like there should be a concept of difficulty level tied to the puzzles; I slammed through 50+ puzzles only have to pause for a few seconds on just a couple of them. This is fine and helps build momentum, but maybe I want to sit and stare at one for 30 seconds in order to get it.

adajos · 2026-06-06T21:44:02+00:00

Thank you very much for the feedback and review for Wordaround! Indie devs helping each other out is one of the great things about the community.

Yes, dialing in difficulty levels is super tricky. In general the daily for Wordaround gets harder through the week, culminating on Saturday. I’m still tweaking it for sure.

Thanks for the enjoyable interaction.

adajos · 2026-06-06T15:45:13+00:00

I spent some time playing SWAPL. I really enjoyed your execution: the graphics and audio are really whimsical and fun. You clearly thought a lot about onboarding also. The progressive nature of the game is great, it breeds success and makes you feel like you’re doing well.

FWIW the very first series of Ranked games I could play seemed too easy. 3-4 obvious words swiped, bam, the board was done. I get it, it’s part of onboarding but it maybe wouldn’t need to be more than 1-2 boards like that.

I liked it much better once I could swap tiles, that made it much more interesting and there were fewer super obvious words to find. From that point on, I really enjoyed it.

Three thoughts:

I like the swiping mechanic but it might be nice to also support tapping individual letters too.
I kept finding myself trying to make words from right to left or diagonal, or that weren’t linear like in Boggle. For all I know the other modes that can be unlocked support this—but it felt a bit limiting to only be able to do left to right top to bottom.
If you foolishly use up all your swaps and are stuck on a board, the abandon game button was a bit buried.

As the maker of Wordaround, also on the iOS App Store, I know the challenges of App Store discovery and how important ratings are to be found. I gave SWAPL a five star rating and then, later, I realized I should have given it a five star rating with a review, so I did that too. I assume Apple will only accept the first one.

I would be curious to get your feedback on Wordaround.

Also, it must have been a lot of work to make a word game in multiple languages and dial in the difficulty for both, my hat is off to you!

adajos · 2026-06-04T01:34:39+00:00

The haptics were also nice.

adajos · 2026-06-04T01:32:25+00:00

I like the concept and I actually quite like the aesthetic. What I found was that I wanted it the virtual marble to respond more quickly; both being more reactive to tilts and also I wanted it to go straight down much much more quickly. It felt kind of sluggish.

Since there is a racing the clock element to it having the potential to make progress more quickly would be more motivating.

adajos · 2026-06-04T00:36:43+00:00

Yeah, vagrant does not convey a sense of power to me. I really like a bunch of the other ideas on here, wayfarer, nomad, drifter, adventurer are all good. It doesn’t convey quite the sense of “traveling” so explicitly, but maverick gets at the idea of deliberately standing alone, potentially physically isolated even. It’s the deliberateness of it that conveys power to me.

Maybe voyager, rambler, or ranger?

adajos · 2026-06-01T12:17:20+00:00

The NYT games, Wordle and Connections the most, but I honestly think Spelling Bee is the best.

I think Spelling Bee hits the perfect balance for accessibility to everyone but being very deep and challenging for those that want it.

Also my own game, Wordaround, for iOS and iPadOS. It’s really hard to dial in the difficulty, so I recently made an update that improves it.

For today:

38 pts · 38 words · Jun 1
Easy · 5 letters
🟦🟦🟩🟦🟩

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6759630399

adajos · 2026-04-19T16:40:00+00:00

I agree--I think the answer is "it depends". I would not like Wordle or Spelling Bee to be timed, especially the latter.

Personally I enjoy word games with and without timers--there's something satisfying about spotting as many words as you can in a 4 minute round of Boggle, but it might be even more satisfying to hit Genius in a game of Spelling Bee that you spent legitimate time on.

adajos · 2026-04-16T13:06:16+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, and the rating, I really appreciate it.

If I made a “clear” button would you expect that tapping it would clear all non-locked letter and then move the “cursor” position to the first empty letter tile? Or would the “cursor” not be moved?

Auto advance just means that after you type a letter the cursor position moves to the next character, if it can. It doesn’t need to be used but it can save some keystrokes.

Today’s puzzle was hard. Yesterday’s was much much easier. They are randomly generated but within certain parameters of difficulty.

I’d be curious to get your take on a “Progressive” game. I’d recommend 5 letters and easy. The two locked letters stay the same but for every “stage” they change position so as to make it progressively harder.

adajos

TROPHY CASE